Sahadev takes a long look at Rizzo’s hitting mechanics during his breakout 2014 season vs his relatively disappointing 2013 over at BP. It’s behind the paywall*, but here are some highlights. Some of these are not super surprising for those of us who watched way too much Cubs baseball last year but it’s nice to see it all in one place, with pictures and stuff

Rizzo had a crummy BABIP in 2013, but a lot of other good peripherals were there.

Rizzo obliterated LHP for the first time.

Rizzo opened up his stance a bit and moved his hands a little higher.

Most importantly, he stuck with this instead of tinkering around with his stance.

Of course, this is probably a chicken-egg type thing. If he struggled he wouldn’t have messed with his stance, but it sure looked like it helped. Sahadev suggests the more open stance allowed him to see the ball more easily from LHP, which could have been a factor in his improvement.

*I just re-upped my BP subscription, it’s worth the money. You should too. Or don’t. I can’t tell you what to do.

ESPN at spring training

Josh Hamilton news

Hamilton was in NY yesterday meeting with MLB disciplinary committee types to discuss his self-reported relapse with drugs and alcohol earlier this offseason. Addiction is tough, man, and I hope he gets the help he needs.

Around the division

The Brewers signed K-Rod to a two-year, $13m deal.

Adam Wainwright has a minor ab strain.

Following Oscar Taveras’s untimely drunk driving death, the Cardinals are rolling out a program to remind people not to do that shit. Let’s hope it sticks this time – they set up a similar transportation service during their year of DUIs that eventually went away since no one used it.

Mat Latos is probably not going back to the Reds when he becomes a FA, after taking this enormous dump on the team’s training staff and clubhouse leadership in this interview with Robothal.

Anyone else heading to spring training?

Looks like I’ll be in AZ for the Cubs home games on March 8-9. Anyone else planning to be around? I’m hoping to see Ricketts wandering around to ask him why the hell they haven’t brought Sosa back. Speaking of, here’s a great piece over at BR about Sosa’s exile. I don’t think he has anything to apologize for (and as Brett points out, it reiterates that it’s not Kerry Wood that’s holding this up).

]]>http://obstructedview.net/facepalm/daily-ish-facepalm-2-26-15-rizzos-stance-coach-manny.html/feed0“Daily” Facepalm – Moncada, Epstein, Wood Extension?http://obstructedview.net/facepalm/daily-facepalm-mocanda-epstein-wood-extension.html?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=daily-facepalm-mocanda-epstein-wood-extension
http://obstructedview.net/facepalm/daily-facepalm-mocanda-epstein-wood-extension.html#commentsMon, 23 Feb 2015 20:09:18 +0000http://obstructedview.net/?p=16716Yoan Moncada ——-> Red Sox The Cuban defector goes to the Sox on a $30m deal. The Cubs continued to scout him despite being under the CBA signing limit penalty, hoping for the slim chance that he’d sign after July when their probation ends. The Red Sox burned their own signing bridges with the deal […]]]>

Yoan Moncada ——-> Red Sox

The Cuban defector goes to the Sox on a $30m deal. The Cubs continued to scout him despite being under the CBA signing limit penalty, hoping for the slim chance that he’d sign after July when their probation ends. The Red Sox burned their own signing bridges with the deal and are now due for the same penalty next year, as well as having to pay an additional $30m in luxury tax. Moncada got paid, but trust MLB to find a system that seems even dumber on its face than instituting an international draft.

Theo interview

Theo was on 670 The Score over the weekend, and CCO has the transcript. There was lots of boilerplate that we could have guessed at ourselves, but an interesting quote on Castillo:

He’ll either be one of three catchers on the roster or having this kind of depth can be really useful in case there is an injury and stranger things have happened that he could find himself back in to a really prominent role on this team. Or, we’re always open to the possibility of a trade to put him in a good position to go out and have a leading role on a club and also benefit the organization. We’re not opposed to three catchers because that last roster spot gives us versatility then Joe [Maddon] can do plenty of things in-game with those catchers.

I’ll still be shocked if he isn’t traded, but at least the FO is trying to sell other teams that they could keep him. It’s not like they’re going to give Castillo extra PAs at 1b.

Betting on yourself, and losing

According to this piece from Gordo, the Cubs offered Travis Wood an extension somewhere around 4/24 following his second solid season with the Cubs in 2013. Wood bet on himself, and now has a nontrivial chance of losing the last starting spot in a competition with Edwin Jackson. Whoops.

Quick hits

Matt Eddy of Baseball America compared the Cubs current clownboatload of prospects to similar past prospect classes. All of them save the Royals (heh) gave at least 50-60 WAR of value. Squee.

Sahadev Sharma of BP wrote a three-part breakdown of the Cubs minor league system over at Vine Line.

The Greek God of Walks has joined the Cubs front office

Tsuyoshi Wada is dealing with some hamstring soreness. Not a good sign for his chances to sneak into the 5th starter competition.

In case anyone thought this wouldn’t be the case, Hector Rondon is still the closer and Jon Lester will be the opening day starter.

The Cubs will wear a #14 patch this year to honor Ernie Banks.

Fantasy Baseball reminder

Just a reminder about the OV FLB League for lazy folks that I posted about a few weeks back. We have 5-6 people who have expressed interest and could use more. I’m still looking into details for the league setup.

]]>http://obstructedview.net/facepalm/daily-facepalm-mocanda-epstein-wood-extension.html/feed0DFP: Lester, Montero, and Framinghttp://obstructedview.net/commentary-and-analysis/dfp-lester-montero-and-framing.html?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=dfp-lester-montero-and-framing
http://obstructedview.net/commentary-and-analysis/dfp-lester-montero-and-framing.html#commentsSun, 21 Dec 2014 18:14:29 +0000http://obstructedview.net/?p=16573Jon Lester Paying $150+ million for a pitcher with 1600 career innings isn’t the safest of investments, but it sure is nice that the Cubs finally signed someone. After years of missing out on seemingly all of their big-name targets, I can’t have been the only person that was worried that the team simply didn’t have the […]]]>

Paying $150+ million for a pitcher with 1600 career innings isn’t the safest of investments, but it sure is nice that the Cubs finally signed someone. After years of missing out on seemingly all of their big-name targets, I can’t have been the only person that was worried that the team simply didn’t have the TV revenue necessary to hang in the modern free agent market.

We know the Cubs were in on Masahiro Tanaka, Yu Darvish, Yoenis Cespedes, Anibal Sanchez, and Russell Martin, and it sure seemed like they should have been in on the likes of Shin-Soo Choo, Brian McCann, Melky Cabrera, and Jacoby Ellsbury. It’s not hard to talk yourself out of any or even all of those deals for the price, but at some point individual overpays just become market value, and teams can either afford to participate or they can’t. Glad to see the Cubs finally landing a big name, even if it’s still hard to shake the feeling that this is nothing more than a mid-market club, at least for the moment. I was getting really tired of the Rudy Jaramillo plan, redux.

After the Montero trade went down, lots of folks naturally made the comparison to Martin. It’s true that the two have been similar over the past three years (.254/.348/.386 for Montero vs. .241/.345/.402 for Martin), and both are very solid defensively. A few things to consider, though:

Montero has played his entire career in a very hitter friendly place, whereas Martin has mostly done the opposite.

Montero has struggled with lower-back issues in the past, and that’s not an issue that tends to just go away. Martin, on the other hand, has discoveredthe secret that has eluded mankind for all of history.

The most troubling thing about Montero to me is the Trevor Bauersaga. It’s pretty much inexcusable, in my opinion, to run a top pitching prospect out of town for what amounted to communication issues with his catcher. Granted, the Cubs don’t really have pitching prospects, but I’m not crazy about having an old-school catcher who has to be dragged kicking and screaming into listening to a different pitching philosophy.

Don’t get me wrong, I would still probably take Montero for the price, but I don’t think it’s a no-brainer.

Pitch Framing

So, the Cubs are finally on board with pitch framing. Does it seem odd to anyone else that it took this long? Between Welington Castillo, Jarrod Saltalamacchia, George Kottaras, Victor Martinez, Dioner Navarro et al. it sure seems like Epstein-led teams have out-and-out ignored this area ever since it was originally popularized. I initially assumed that they thought the advantage provided by good framers would fade as umpires became more aware of the phenomenon. Now I’m wondering if I was wrong about that.

Remember when on-base-percentage was all the rage, and the entire online community assumed that anyone could learn to take walks if they would just try really hard?* Pretty much no one believes that now, right? I mean, the Cubs and their blogosphere would be thrilled if Javier Baez improved to even a league-average walk rate. I don’t think anyone thinks he will ever be particularly good at drawing walks. Take my word for it, that never used to be the case. (Why can’t Corey Patterson walk like Jack Cust or Nick Johnson? He just needs the right coaching. It just makes sense; all he has to do is take more pitches.) We used to spend an inordinate amount of time wringing our hands about what Player X could be if we just got rid of Dusty Baker or Oneiri Fleita, or whichever team employee seemed to have his head furthest up his ass at a given moment.

Now I’m wondering if a similar transition has happened with framing. Granted, the “framing can be taught” crowd was never as loud as the “someone just needs to tell them how important walks are” contingent, but I have definitely heard such things from Dave Cameron, among others. Was Epstein part of the “teach-em-up” group? Has he conceded defeat?

*To his credit, as far back as I can remember, Tangotiger never bought in to that theory.

Elsewhere

When the terms of the Giancarlo Stanton deal came out, I was shocked that he agreed to a structure which included heavy backloading after his opt-out. Stanton angrily complained about the Marlins’ tendency to tear it down to avoid paying players in the past. It seems to me that the same thing is likely to happen to him. They will put some effort into rebuilding, they will fail, and everyone will be traded. Stanton will get pissed and opt-out without ever really being paid by the team. That feels like a huge preamble to say: holy shit, how is this not getting more attention?

The Friedman-Dodgers could be really scary. For a team that has already seen its payroll hit the stratosphere, that may sound odd, but I have always felt that no $200 million dollar roster should have as much flotsam as the Dodgers of recent vintage did. I don’t think that’s going to be the case moving forward. This offseason was the perfect time to sell high on Dee Gordon and Matt Kemp, the latter of whom is literally arthritic, and the Dodgers managed to coordinate a complicated series of moves to make it happen quickly. That team could be good for a long time.

]]>http://obstructedview.net/commentary-and-analysis/dfp-lester-montero-and-framing.html/feed0DFP 11/17/2014http://obstructedview.net/facepalm/dfp-11172014.html?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=dfp-11172014
http://obstructedview.net/facepalm/dfp-11172014.html#commentsMon, 17 Nov 2014 21:15:43 +0000http://obstructedview.net/?p=16498Just when you think you’ve settled down from the Vizcaino/La Stella bombshell, you get 3 more of them.

First, the Jays signed Russell Martin to a 5 year, $82,000,000 deal. A 16.4 AAV deal for 5 years was probably too much for the Cubs to swallow, and I’m sort of glad that the Cubs didn’t sign Martin if that’s the price for him. It’s good to see him go to the Blue Jays, which is far away from the Cubs, seeing as the Blue Jays probably won’t even make the playoffs next year. In fact, the Blue Jays are probably my favorite landing spot for Martin, as it takes them realistically out of the Melky Cabrera sweepstakes. Cabrera is probably a Mariner, but I like his potential as a mid-tier FA pickup this offseason and the fewer suitors the better. Cabrera will more-or-less get this same deal, though. If it gets that high, it’ll be a hard pill to swallow.

Basically one minute later, the Braves traded Jason Heyward and Jordan Walden for Tyrell Jenkins and Shelby Miller. It’s a shockingly low return for a year of Heyward (which makes me think/hope he won’t sign an extension with St. Louis), and Jordan Walden is pretty darn good in his own right. All it cost the Cards is a pitcher that lost it towards the end of 2013 and a “who cares” prospect in Jenkins that projects no better than a 4/5 starter (and is no lock to get there either). It is unquestionably a great trade for the Cardinals, who dealt again from their organizational strength to shore up the weakness created by the passing of Oscar Taveras. EDIT: Unnecessary diversion. I apologize.

Lastly, Bill Mueller took a job as the assistant hitting coach for the Cardinals. It’s a punch to the balls, seeing as it is a straight-up demotion from his previous job…hitting coach for the Cubs. I know there was some unpleasantness surrounding his departure (when his own assistant hitting coach was reassigned), and he had to find work somewhere…it is just ripe for entertainment at the Cubs’ expense.

Going forward, it looks like the Cubs are meeting with Jon Lester, but not until he meets with the Red Sox. It seemed unlikely at one point that the Red Sox would re-sign them, but I feel like they are probably the favorites. There has been relatively little chatter on either Shields or Scherzer around the league, which is pretty interesting to me. Two theories: one, teams are waiting for a decision on Maeda’s posting (it was once presumed, now it’s very much a 50/50 proposition, and maybe even leaning towards no), and teams are just waiting for Lester to “set the market” before deciding where to bid on the other guys (seeing as Lester already has 3 serious suitors in Boston/Chicago/Toronto). Seeing as Hoyer said “no multiple 9-figure contracts” and Maeda/Shields/Scherzer/Lester will all get one, I think you’re very much looking at a Lester/McCarthy/Billingsley offseason with a possible Montero trade in there somewhere. I don’t hate that offseason (rotation: Lester/Arrieta/McCarthy/Hendricks/Wood, with some wild cards in there if Billingsley recovers and makes it interesting), and it’s maybe $24 MM for Lester, $14 MM for McCarthy, and $6 MM for Bills. That puts the Cubs right at $110 MM (+$13 if they trade for Montero), which is both expected and reasonable.

]]>http://obstructedview.net/facepalm/dfp-11172014.html/feed0Daily Facepalm 10.29.14 – Game 7 loomshttp://obstructedview.net/facepalm/daily-facepalm-10-29-14-game-7-looms.html?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=daily-facepalm-10-29-14-game-7-looms
http://obstructedview.net/facepalm/daily-facepalm-10-29-14-game-7-looms.html#commentsWed, 29 Oct 2014 15:48:03 +0000http://obstructedview.net/?p=16425Following a 10-0 beatdown from the BABIP gods, the Giants and Royals play game 7 tonight. I’ve been surprised by how much I’ve enjoyed this world series, considering I have essentially no opinion on any player on either side and am mostly rooting for the Giants due to my dislike of Ned Yost and the […]]]>

Following a 10-0 beatdown from the BABIP gods, the Giants and Royals play game 7 tonight. I’ve been surprised by how much I’ve enjoyed this world series, considering I have essentially no opinion on any player on either side and am mostly rooting for the Giants due to my dislike of Ned Yost and the inevitable barrage of articles about small ball.

Tim Hudson gets the start tonight, and hopefully it goes a little better than his meh start in game three, where he gave up three runs in 5.2 innings. It’s hard to believe a guy who has had as long and successful a career as Hudson had never pitched in the WS, and it makes for a nice narrative going into the finale.

I was a little surprised at all the people dumping on Jake Peavy last night. Who would have guessed that a guy pitching with a bruised thumb might have a bad outing? If a manager is going into a game saying your starter is on a really short leash, maybe you should just start someone else. If his performance in his two World Series games is going to cost him millions of dollars in the eyes of some GMs, I’m sure glad that the Cubs have a GM who isn’t likely to change his valuation of the guy based on two starts.

The strangest thing this whole postseason has been the trope that Yusmeiro Petit is somehow an ace up the sleeve for the Giants. I’m going to need to see a lot more before he starts knocking on the door of the Wandy Rodriguez HOF.

I’ve been listening to Chicago sports radio at work this week (mostly due to Bears train wreck-related shadenfreude), and the callers haven’t disappointed. The best Cubs-related ones I heard were guys talking about how the Cubs really need to lock down Joe Maddon since he’s the best manager out there, then went on to opine that the team really needs someone who can teach fundamentals of things like giving themselves up to move runners over. Never change, sports talk show callers, never change.

Pretty much everyone assumes that Maddon is coming to the Cubs at this point. I’m still kind of meh on it – I think he’s better than Renteria but this isn’t going to make or break anything. I feel kind of bad for Renteria, but he’ll soak up his tears in a big pile of money the Cubs will be paying him for not doing anything, and I think he should be high on the list for another managerial gig somewhere. He issued a statement through his agent on the situation, but for all the media hand-wringing over him I’m surprised that there hasn’t been more questioning of the players. The biggest plus attributed to Renteria was his ability to develop and connect with the young players (and turn things around for Rizzo and Castro), I wonder if anyone in the clubhouse is pissed to see him booted out the door.

Pos wrote a long piece on Bill James that went up yesterday. It’s a great read, and some critical comments from him on WAR has had the internet buzzing. I guess we should pretend that Win Shares weren’t a thing?

Javier Baez homered last night; it was his first at Wrigley Field and fourth since being called up. He didn’t walk, and hasn’t yet since being called up. That’s a little troubling, but it’s too early to say much about that. He also didn’t strike out, which is also a little early to make any judgements about, but is something I am keenly watching.

Above is Baez’s career game log. Game #1 was his first game in the Arizona Rookie League. #348 was last night’s game against the Brewers. The dependent variable is strikeout rate. The blue line represents cumulative strikeout rate; The remainder of the plotted series are specific to a year and level. Data is from Fangraphs.

Depending on your own personal dispositions, there are likely a few things that jump out from the plot. If an optimist, you are likely to note that the cumulative rate has seemingly stabilized at around 26%, which isn’t all that bad given that Baez is still only 21. Also, there is a general trend of improvement after an early spike at each level. If a pessimist, you probably see a rate that has increased with each advancing level, settling around 28% at AA and 30% at AAA. Now that Baez is facing a far bigger jump in his major league promotion, will it end up somewhere north of 30? I think that both points of view have merit, and I’m not sure what the right answer is. For the moment, ZIPS has Baez at about 33% for the rest of the season; Steamer says around 30%. The answer, whatever it turns out to be, is pretty important.

It’s hard to get a sense for how many really high-K hitters succeed in the long term, given recent increases in league rates. Chris Davis has been intermittently fantastic, though not before his first team gave him up for half a season of a good reliever. And the list of other players who struck out 30% of the time with walk rates around league average or worse is pretty grim: Juan Francisco, Kelly Shoppach, Bo Jackson, Tom Egan, and Wily Mo Pena. None of them were middle infielders, of course, which will earn Baez considerable slack. I think that most will be disappointed, though, if he merely turns into a hitter like Francisco. It will be much easier for Baez to best that if he can stay near his current career mark of 26%.

Not-So Quick Links

Lots of great stuff has hit the webs recently.

Upon hearing “game-fixing hoax” and Jeff Locke, I assumed the story was of a sharp who claimed to be on the inside, but in reality just realized midway through the 2013 season that Locke was pitching way above his head and bet against him every time out. Analysts at the time were climbing over themselves to shout “regression,” after all. The real story turns out to be much dumber and sleazier, with a touch of “holy shit that’s terrifying.” Who knew that Bud Selig had reach in law enforcement? In thirty years, cryonic Bud will be leading a team of Road Warriors around the interstates of what used to be America, doing the NSA’s dirty work.

Craig Calcaterra is worried about the upcoming change in commissionership. Rob Neyer, not as much. I tend to side with Craig. Jerry Reinsdorf is fresh off the absolute drubbing that the owners dealt the NBA players in the last round of negotiations, and wants to similarly crush MLBPA. That type of victory would take away any advantages the Cubs have via their larger market, so, yeah, it’s something to keep an eye on.

Rob thinks it would be nice if a commissioner were more confrontational on certain issues, like increasing the pace of the game. The problem is that neither side cares about that, which is why it hasn’t happened. And no owner is endorsing a commish candidate based on issues that he doesn’t care about.

Rany’s take on Cubs rebuilding. I think he’s right about the broad strokes, but the narratives start to fray upon closer examination. For example, the “position players only” story has gained steam since Joe Pos first pushed it in June. Would anyone be talking about that, though, if the Cubs had drafted Mark Appel and Brady Aiken? They wanted to, according to post-draft reports. And, of course, middle round draftees by the team have overwhelmingly been pitchers.

Also, Rany credits the team’s success in pitching acquisitions to the front office simply taking FIP seriously. That’s true to an extent, but no one would be touting Theo’s prowess in that department if Travis Wood, Scott Feldman, Jake Arrieta, and Jason Hammel had simply performed up to their career FIP levels when with the Cubs. Feldman had a 4.56 career FIP when he signed and put up a 3.46 ERA with the Cubs. Jason Hammel’s was 4.33, as compared to an ERA under 3 for the Cubs. As dmick pointed out in the comments, no one is talking about Travis Wood this season, even though his ERA is more in line with his peripherals and stuff than it was last year. The Cubs’ magic touch with pitchers is premised almost entirely on players who performed better than their previous FIP’s would indicate. Not surprisingly, most of those over-performances haven’t held up in the long term.

It’s funny. I deleted a post I was writing this week about appreciating the moment, appreciating what we have right now. It was about Javier Baez, the Cubs as they are, and life. Too preachy, too obvious, too blah-blah-blah. So, deleted.

Obviously Robin Williams taking his own life has very little to do with Cubs baseball or even baseball at all, but there is this scene from Good Will Hunting that says almost exactly what I wanted to say.

If you’ve seen it, you know it’s Robin Williams’ character discussing how he missed GAME 6 to “see about a girl.” No regrets. The message rings achingly true for me when I think about all the things we miss in life. I miss Cubs games, opting instead to follow them sporadically on GameDay (yes, I now watch baseball on a spreadsheet, essentially). I miss out on the Twitter chatter. But I don’t regret it. Other people miss out on church or weddings or time with their kids or entire weeks of work, opting instead to attend Cubs games/tweet like mad/pretend to be Jim Belushi . . . whatever it is.

Learning that one of America’s favorite people ended his own life makes the best of us wonder how any of us make it through, but I tell you, it makes me dwell on the heart of the message I deleted when I erased that post (entitled “You don’t know what you got ’til it’s going, going, gone”), which was this: appreciate this moment. Enjoy right now. Learn to love the Cubs in the rebuilding process, Baez in the learning process, and life in whatever sucks-at-the-moment state it may be in. Enjoy it. Do what you love. Appreciate what and who you love.

I’ll finish the facepalm with one tiny little thought about baseball in general. There’s an awful lot of talk about how the game needs to speed up, how football is America’s new pastime, and how baseball as a spectator sport is dying. I disagree. Baseball is what it always has been great at being: the best vehicle for enjoying the moment I’ve ever known. You watch a baseball with friends, family, strangers, and you actually get to enjoy life and the game. Baseball gives us the one thing we never seem to get anymore: pause. You can watch baseball and talk. You can watch baseball and feel. You can watch baseball and laugh, cry, daydream, whatever, and still not miss a thing. Try having a meaningful conversation during a football game . . . even a meaningful conversation about football, and watch the levels of unspoken perturbed discomfort blanch the faces of everyone in the room. Baseball gives us the chance to enjoy the moment for what it is, allowing for a bit of hope for what the next moment might be. So the next time you find yourself bemoaning how bad the Cubs are or telling yourself you just can’t take the pain of life without a World Series victory, tell yourself to shut up and enjoy the game. Because really. It’s good to enjoy the game, however far off the dynastic horizon might seem.

I don’t regret missing so much baseball, but I’d regret watching the games and failing to appreciate the beauty in being able to do so. Don’t let that happen to you.

Anyway. It really sucks that Robin Williams is dead. I will miss him. But I’ll always remember him fondly and gratefully for reminding me that life is hilarious, enjoyable, and worth fighting for. With just that hint of a reminder that sometimes it’s too much. May we all find the grace to carry on.

In case you missed it, the Cubs acquired RHP Jacob Turner last week for two non-prospects. Turner’s stock has really fallen off since 2012, when his name was being tossed around as a potential centerpiece from the Tigers in a Matt Garza trade and was eventually a big part of the trade that brought Anibal Sanchez and Omar Infante to the team. For three years between 2010 and 2012, Baseball America ranked him as a top 30 prospect, and only two years later, he finds himself in the land of the DFA’ed.

Looking back on his minor league career, there were some warning signs, as he never really did figure out how to strike out minor league hitters. And over 2013-2014 combined, Turner made 32 pretty-bad starts with the Marlins. His strikeout and walk rates have been bottom of the barrel (though his groundball rate has been very good). This year, he has split time between rotation and the bullpen. The Marlins eventually decided they had seen enough, and were going with Brad Penny(!) instead.

On the whole, though, this seems like no risk acquisition for the Cubs. Turner is still only 23, and consistently throws his fastball at around 93 mph. The only problem is that the team is suddenly overflowing with backend rotation candidates, and Turner is out of options. It will be interesting to see whether they try to get him a few starts this season, and what changes they will be able to work out with him at the major league level.

Quick Links

If you haven’t been paying attention, the Royals are reenacting 2013, all the way down to the presence of a talisman.

The Padres finally hired a GM, A.J. Preller from the Rangers, despite a mysterious Cedric Daniels file in his past (with the international acquisition market playing the role of the Western District).

That lawsuit challenging MLB’s territorial rights system (not the O’s-Nats one, the other one) is going to trial.

It sounds like Fangraphs is beefing up their prospect coverage. Kiley McDaniel will now be running things. Is this a response to the BP juggernaut?

The most striking aspect of yesterday’s deadline was just how many trades involved major league players. The classic mode of deadline dealing is this: sellers send soon-to-be free agents to buyers in return for prospects. Yesterday, by contrast, sellers picked up Yoenis Cespedes, Joe Kelly, Allen Craig, Drew Smyly, Nick Franklin, and Tommy Milone. Of the bunch, only Franklin is anywhere near prospect status.

This wrinkle certainly made the deadline more approachable for the average fan, and more active (i.e. fun) than it otherwise would have been, but is this something we can expect to see in future seasons? I doubt it. Contending teams just aren’t in the business of sending off good players on reasonable contracts. No one is in that business, in fact. So why did it happen? The convergence of a unique group of buyers and sellers.

1. The buyers were either desperate or loaded. The A’s and Tigers are perennial contenders, but neither has won the World Series recently. Mike Ilitch is famously old, and Billy Beane is famously unsuccessful in the playoffs. Neither team has much in the way of prospects, but they found themselves in the midst of an arms race and felt pressure to marginally increase their WS chances. The Cardinals are an altogether different story. They have been so successful at building a team of young players on good contracts that they couldn’t find at bats for top prospect Oscar Taveras.

2. The sellers are good. Would anyone be surprised if 365 days from now the Red Sox and Rays were among the two best teams in the league? And I mean before their deadline acquisitions. Both teams have underperformed this season, but it’s easy to imagine Jonah Keri stories next July about how we should have known that both were good, and are too quick to overrate the results of a single season. The Rangers fall into this group, as well, even though they didn’t make any notable moves yesterday.

Of course, a similar convergence could happen in the future, but I don’t think yesterday was an indication that the league has abandoned the complete tear-down philosophies of the Cubs and Astros, either.

Tampa Remorse?

The biggest trade of the day was the Rays sending David Price to the Tigers in return for Smyly, Franklin, and prospect Willy Adames. The Rays famously turned down Addison Russell, which seems like a much better return. If the Cubs had chosen the Smyly/Franklin platter over Russell, I would have been flummoxed, to say the least. I’m wondering, though, if we are underestimating the Rays’ desire for quantity in their big sells.

Not all the Rays trades are huge, of course, but it seems like their priorities are different from a team like the Cubs. Theo Epstein talks about impact talent ad nauseam. Tampa, on the other hand, can’t really afford to supplement their core in free agency the way that the Cubs will (hopefully) be able to do. They seem to prioritize getting multiple big-leaguers in each deal, even if it means slightly devaluing star power.

The A’s pulled off a shocking trade this morning, sending Yoenis Cespedes and a draft pick to the Red Sox for Jon Lester and Jonny Gomes. Billy Beane is trying to create the next best thing to Curt Schilling/Randy Johnson. Does any GM in the game have more balls than Beane? Part of the motivation for this trade is likely that Jason Hammel has been absolutely awful in his four starts with the team, posting an ERA of over 9.5 and a FIP of 7.3. It looks like the velocity of his slider has been down, but otherwise I don’t see a clear explanation for it. Must be the absence of John Baker.

To compensate for the loss of Cespedes, the A’s followed up the move by sending Tommy Miloneto Minnesota in exchange for Sam Fuld, which makes me exceedingly happy. Are there still Cub fans who love Sam Fuld? If so, I am eagerly anticipating the Fuld/Tony Campana contingent name-dropping Billy Beane in lamenting all the promising young players the Cubs have given away over the years. Also, I know the Twins have been aggressively pursuing power pitchers of late, but baseball never felt right when Tommy Milone existed and didn’t play in Minneapolis.